


She'll Be Watching Over You

by Sapphixxx



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Gen, Melodrama
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-07
Updated: 2016-07-07
Packaged: 2018-07-22 02:27:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7415971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sapphixxx/pseuds/Sapphixxx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three vignettes about dying, and not</p><p>Sapphixxx.tumblr.com</p>
            </blockquote>





	She'll Be Watching Over You

                Reinhardt is not unused to the desperation that comes from close-quarters combat. In his youth it was, in fact, something he relished. Being able to see the confidence in the eyes of his opponents quickly turn to fear gave him more hope for a peaceful future than any politician’s speech. After all, an opponent who feared retribution at the end of a rocket-powered hammer was one who could be cowed into submission. But today, after decades of fighting, the fear he sees between flashes of rifle fire in the sweltering heat of rural New Mexico is not the kind that gives him hope. This fear is that of a cornered animal. The kind that drives men insane, that leads them to lash out recklessly without any sense of self-preservation. In this moment, that furious, terrible fear has led a wounded mercenary to hold a grenade out in front of himself like a crucifix rather than risk capture.

                In the close quarters of the warehouse that they have ended up in, a grenade could easily wound or kill a number of the already haggard Overwatch members. There were still mercenaries ahead pinning them down with heavy fire. With nowhere for them to run if the grenade goes off, Reinhardt thinks quickly, approaching the cornered mercenary with an outstretched hand and soft voice.

“Easy there my boy! Your battle is over, there is no need for that.”

                Even as the words fall from his lips, though, Reinhardt sees that the young man is not hearing them.

“Come now... If you will just put that down, we will take care of you! Please,”

                By the look on the mercenary’s face, it appears that he is as surprised as Reinhardt that he had the guts to pull the pin out. He releases the grenade as though it were a hot coal, and it skitters across the concrete floor just to the side and behind Reinhardt before he can react. As Reinhardt spins around to locate the explosive, he sees the eyes of his teammates, wide and pleading. They are still under fire, with nowhere to run. Before he can second-guess himself, Reinhardt snatches the explosive, and leaps to the ground holding it to his chest, with his back to the team.

Not a moment later, the grenade explodes in his hand.

                Breathless, crumpled on the ground, baking inside his claustrophobic helmet, somehow, in this disoriented state he has the time to take stock of how much the fall hurt his hip before realizing that while his chest plate held steady, his hand has been removed. Ah well, perhaps he will just get a new one, like that nice Jesse McCree fellow? He tries to roll over and ask how the procedure is, but he can’t seem to draw a breath. ‘It is probably the damnably poor insulation of this helmet’, he thinks to himself. When they get back he should ask Brigitte to look into installing a fan. Or better yet an air conditioner for the whole suit! It is this thought that makes Reinhardt realize how old he feels. An air conditioned suit of armor? What next, a cup holder and a slot for a golf club? But between not being able to take a breath, and the loss of blood, he is getting quite sleepy. He’s done his job, surely the team will understand if he needs to take a little nap.

                Before he can close his eyes, though, he feels Mercy turn her staff upon him.

“I’ve got you, old friend. No time to rest just yet.”

                Air rushes back into his lungs, bones knit themselves back together, and vigor floods into his weary muscles. The doctor smiles at him, as she crouches over his huddled form. He gasps a few times, suddenly alert again, and climbs back onto his feet, letting out a booming laugh.

“Have no fear, I am your shield!” he bellows to reassure his teammates.  

Throughout the rest of the mission as he shields his comrades from fire with his barrier, he can’t help but stare at his hand. He could have sworn the blast took the whole thing off, and yet, there it is. Perhaps he would ask Dr. Ziegler about it later.

Or, perhaps not. She was a busy woman, and he had a feeling that there are some matters that are best left alone.

-

                Zipping through the streets of Numbani, Tracer keeps the sniper that has been harassing them busy. She recognized her, not that it was any kind of feat. Even in the brave new world of the 2060’s blue skin was a rare choice of fashion. In her private moments, Tracer liked to think that she and the sniper were building a relationship, a kind of rapport. Maybe she was a cold-blooded killer now, but she’d seen those eyes—there was definitely still some good in there.

                While she was reticent to ever admit it, chasing Widowmaker was also just about the only _challenge_ Tracer got on missions. Most of her opponents could barely shoot straight at the best of times, letalone when trying to hit a supersonic time-traveler. Widowmaker, though? It seemed like she could probably keep cool even if someone hurled her into the center of the sun. To have any hope of surviving, Tracer had to bring more to the table than the usual few tricks and flashy moves. She had to be smart and quick, constantly making calculated risks to not get cornered. It was exhilarating, an adrenaline rush that she scarcely got to experience since her days of piloting.

                On this occasion, that sense of adrenaline was more pronounced than ever. Through the narrow, densely packed skyscrapers and across the raised walkways that soared over the streets of the city, Tracer had kept Widowmaker in a nearly constant dance of jumping through the air, swinging from building to building, dropping from walkways, and crashing into windows. In the near full hour of fighting she had gotten into grappling distance of the woman more than a few times, and on at least one of those occasions, she swore that she saw the sniper smile in genuine affection.

                Between the adrenaline and, if she had to be frank, absolutely _stupid_ attractiveness of her opponent, Tracer was feeling a little giggly and cheeky as she regrouped with the rest of her team. As they watched the last of their enemies retreat, Tracer spotted Widowmaker grappling up to the top of a building, heading away from them. She hollered at the top of her lungs at the blue woman, waving cheerfully, earning a look of disdain from Commander Morrison. Although, he always looked as if someone had pissed in his cheerios so what difference did it make?

                In one moment she was squinting to see if Widowmaker was reacting, and in the next, she found herself splayed out on the pavement with Mercy hovering over her, glowing with resplendent golden warmth.

“Hate to say it, but you had that one coming, kid.” Spat Morrison, as he fired a burst up at the building the sniper had fired from. Despite his demeanor, Tracer noticed him exhale deeply and visibly release the tension in his shoulders after his outburst. A few beats afterward, Mercy looks into Tracer’s eyes sympathetically and softly lays a hand on her shoulder

“I’m sorry, Lena, but Jack is right. We are thankful for how you can keep that woman at bay, but you mustn’t forget that she means us harm.”

“Ngh, yeah. Sure thing…” Mumbles Tracer. She picks herself up off the ground, rubbing a bit of her own blood between her forefinger and thumb absentmindedly, feeling foggy and befuddled. That night at dinner she joked about her silly schoolgirl crush was starting to get her into trouble. But as she was laughing with everyone else, she coughed up a bullet, and remembers a moment before Mercy had saved her. More than the bullet in her skull, the feeling of being unmoored but not gone caused dread to blossom in her chest. It was too close to when she had come unstuck from time. Before the feeling can seize her, though, she holds up the bullet, a hollowpoint that had expanded and split into four petals, and smiles.

“Awww, look, it’s like a flower! And who says romance is dead?”

                She chuckles again to help diffuse the gruesome sight, but inside was filling with apprehension about sleeping tonight.

-

                Soaring high above her home turf at the Temple of Anubis Pharah let fly one rocket after another, gracefully threading in between columns and through the winding side passages and alleyways to flush out intruders. Realistically she knew that the other members of the reformed Overwatch respected her abilities, but she couldn’t help but notice every mistake and clumsy moment she had when on missions, and it shook her confidence. How could she crawl out from under her mother’s shadow if she were anything but perfect, after all? Thus her heart swelled with pride when given the chance to defend an area she knew so well. There wasn’t a single nook or cranny in this installation that she didn’t know exactly how to fly through, no possible hiding spot she didn’t know about. Even under heavy fire, she felt at ease here, skillful, a perfect example to her new comrades of her abilities.

                Whether by arrogant self-assurance, or simply by being too caught up in these thoughts, however, she failed to account for the fact that the enemies Overwatch now faced were not just mere mercenaries, but exceptional soldiers with tools and abilities on par with their own. Standing atop a pillar, waiting for her jetpack to cool off for another pass through the facility, Pharah felt a sudden chill as she turned to find a man suddenly behind her with the face of an… Owl?

                Before she could even think of how to deal with the creep, a shot rang out and she was falling. The world tumbled around her, confounding every attempt to right herself and slow her descent before the ground met her with a sickening crack. Every thought was stricken from her mind save for the instinct to keep fighting. To fly back up and rectify her mistake. But she couldn’t feel her legs, and as she tried to reach up to activate her communicator to alert her team, she found that she could only pant and splutter as fluid filled her throat. Even as her vision dimmed, and her thoughts became sluggish, she held on. She could fix this. A soldier is adaptable, a soldier is strong. A soldier—

                When her thoughts caught back up with her, the sky had turned deeply pink and purple, and Mercy was leaning over her, hand on her cheek and brows knit in anxiety. More than relief at the feeling in her legs, more than thankfulness for the life she had returned to, Pharah felt ashamed. Shame washed over her like a blanket of ice. In the area she knew best, at her most capable, she had been struck down. A stupid failure had almost been her final act on Earth. The afterlife could have taken her like that, choking and crying like a pitiful fool. Dr. Ziegler was saying something, but Pharah couldn’t hear it, and refused to meet her eyes. As the doctor became more insistent, Pharah clamped her eyes shut and growled,

                “I am fine now, Doctor, thanks to you. I will do better next time.”

                 That night, as she was pacing in her quarters, Pharah dug the Qur’an out from the bottom of her bag, and opened it for the first time since she was a little girl. She didn’t know where to start or what kind of answers to look for, but all of a sudden she felt very small, and hopelessly ignorant.

-

                Everyone who has ever met Dr. Angela Ziegler loves her. She is kind and gentle, with a kind of selflessness that borders on the superhuman. The agents of Overwatch are fiercely loyal to her, and they all lavish her with affection in their own ways, even referring to her in only half-joking maternal terms. But even so, each of them, even the doctor herself at times, wonder in their most private moments whether this woman who takes care of them so thoroughly and protects them so completely is not their guardian angel—but in fact their jailer, keeping them shackled to this cycle of violence and pain.

                They do what they can to hold onto themselves. Through sex, escapist entertainment, or diving further into their pursuit of justice. But there is a voice that speaks to them, sometimes from the dark corners in sleepless nights, sometimes quietly interrupting joyous moments of celebration. That voice tells them that they aren’t people, not anymore. They are heroes. And Heroes never die.

 


End file.
